The present invention relates generally to a transaction processing system including electronic cash registers (which are hereinafter referred to collectively as "ECR") each of which provides its primary function of recording sales transactions and its subsidiary function of serving as a till or cash drawer. More specifically, the subsidiary function of the ECR, which usually involves handling change by a human operator, is physically separated from the ECR, an instead that function is implemented by an independent machine that handles change in response to a transaction data concerning each item or service entered on the ECR.
In the conventional transaction processing system, each of the ECR's provides those primary and subsidiary functions, which are operated by the human operator as each sales transaction occurs. Those operations require extra human labor such as handing change to each customer who needs it, and replacing paper rolls in the printer. Such extra labor adversely affects the operator's working efficiency. For implementing those functions, therefore, each of the ECR's contains a printer for issuing a receipt slip that helps the operator perform the settling operation, and a till or cash drawer in which cash paid by the customer or small money prepared as change is kept. This raises the problem of increasing the hardware cost of the ECR and the problem of noises produced by the printer.